In the theater of the absurd that passes for wokery, they ban words and phrases that purportedly trigger unpleasant emotions in the audience. These include:
“Mumbo jumbo” because it’s a corruption of the name of the African god Maamajomboo. Who knew?
“The most qualified person should get the job” because it triggers feelings of inferiority in persons who are inferior to the most qualified.
“Peanut gallery” because it triggers memories of the old days when black people sat there and ate peanuts. Don’t use that phrase, especially around a black person because the painful memories may reduce him (er, I mean them – see below) to tears.
“Cannibal” because it triggers the Carib tribe (oops, “tribe” is triggering, I meant the Carib cannibal community – see below) of the West Indies who ate people. But only as many as they needed to feed themselves.
“America is the land of opportunity” because, we’re told, it’s not. Unless you’re a straight white man who identifies as such on that day, or Barack Obama or LeBron James or Al Sharpton or Kamala.
“Moron” because it suggests that the person is clinically a moron, which is apparently insulting either to the person or to clinical morons or to both.
“Drink the Kool-Aid” because hundreds of Democrat followers of Jim Jones got together and did so and tragedy followed, as typically happens when hundreds of moronic Democrat morons get together.
“Hysteria” because doctors in the old days misdiagnosed women as being afflicted with that. Using the word “hysteria” around a woman today, we’re told, is likely to give her (er, I mean them) a moderate case of it.
“Boy.”
“Spinster” because it originally referred to yarn spinners who were typically unmarried. No, I don’t get it either.
“Bitch” because it has two meanings, one of which is insulting to female dogs.
“Colored people” but not “people of color.” Meanwhile, saying “white privilege” is acceptable and even mandatory because it triggers bad guilt in white people, and that’s good.
“Diversity” but this is a tricky one. It’s bad if it refers to different viewpoints because differing viewpoints are bad but it’s good if it refers to the color of people of color.
“Christmas”, “Thanksgiving”, “Hannukah” and “Easter” but not “Kwanzaa,” “Juneteenth” (which is now a federal holiday — isn’t every day?) or “Ramadan.”
“PMS” but not “testosterone poisoning.”
“Merit”, “achievement” and “success” because those words are often non-inclusive of the good kind of diversity.
“He” and “she.” An individual man is now “they.” So is an individual woman. So is a group of several.
“Man” and “woman” Those binary terms are social constructs imposed by the patriarchy. Same with “male” and “female.”
Yep, all those words are being banned or complicatedly regulated (be sure to study the regulations before attending a cocktail — can I say that? — party) because they trigger uncomfortable feelings in many listeners. And as we know, the purpose of life is to get through it without any discomfort.
Here’s another word that’s being banned because it triggers uncomfortable feelings:
“Trigger”
No, it’s not because “trigger” rhymes with another banned word to which you can’t even allude by the first letter unless you’re a rapper of color (let’s just refer to it as “the _ word”).
And no, it has nothing to do with the misunderstood, um, relationship between Roy Rogers and his (er, their) horse. (And even if that, um, relationship is not misunderstood, who are you to judge a consensual relationship between a gender-fluid and species-fluid human who likes to play dress-up in cowboy costumes with another consenting mammal wearing a fur coat whom he strips naked, ties, bridles, rides and occasionally whips?)
No, it’s because “trigger” is the little lever on a gun that activates the mechanism that impacts the back of a shell to explode the charge that propels the bullet out the barrel.
And into a person. Maybe a person of color. And it’s a fact that most guns are owned by people who are not of color. Such as un-defunded white cops wielding their white privilege.
You think I’m making this up. I’m not.
Since we’re talking about the foolish use of language, here’s another. The media often refer to groups they like as “communities.” As in the “gay community” and the “black community” and alphabet groups such as “LGBTQ community.” They could instead simply refer to “gays” and “blacks” and “LGBTQs” but they gratuitously add the word “community” because they like the nice connotation.
As an aside, the media’s lumping of the members of this or that group together as a “community” suggests that the members all think the same. But to the media, that’s OK, so long as the sameness in their thinking is media-approved. Meaning they are all thinking like the media thinks – like leftists. As you learned a few paragraphs ago, diversity in viewpoints is bad.
And so the media will tell you that the “gay community” hates Republicans (hate is now OK, so long as it’s directed at Republicans, because Republicans are hateful) as if gay Republicans don’t exist.
Here’s my bigger, trigger point. Notice that they never use “community” in connection with groups they dislike, some of which are truly and consciously communal. They never mention the “Christian community” or even the “church-going community.” And you’ll never hear them mention the “gun-owner community” or the “hunter community” or the “gay Republican community.”
Nope, the word “community” carries good connotations which the media reserves for groups it deems good. Diverse viewpoints are triggering.
the Aspen beat 
As always, your unique point of view and eloquent intellect brings the absurd and hypocrisy into perspective. It also “triggers” a feeling of sanity in an insane world.
Thanks for all!
On target thought provoking column.
(Funny side note: A local police force posted a social media notice about a dog someone had found and turned in. In the notice the dog was repeatedly referred to as “them”. While I got the PD’s woke/virtue signaling intent, I also couldn’t help wondering if the officers couldn’t tell the difference between a girl and a boy dog, and/or if the found dog was (were?) twins.)
A. Oh, right, from Austin, Texas. That’s no surprise.
B. We’re using up the alphabet. We have had the n-word and the f-word for a long time but now we have the b-word and the c-word, d-word, l-word, and almost a word for every letter of the alphabet. Actually, we now have the d-word and the d1-word and the d2-word and the d3-word and d4-word. If you’re curious, that would be dickhead, deadbeat, disabled, and Democrat.
Love you response, Pat
Glenn knocks the ball out of the park, once again. So clever and erudite. He recognizes that many readers LAUGH quietly behind the scenes as the supposed majority runs amuck. Until the cycle reverses… and it will! Eventually!
For many of us to witness this foolishness in our lifetimes is a real disappointment for those with IQs above -1 standard deviation off the median (above >85).
Meanwhile, China eats our egg roll! And, we seem so complacent. Danger ahead.
David
I believe Orwell addressed this in 1984.
Something to the effect that purveyors of this nonsense ” eventually hoped that speech would carry no meaning whatsoever, and devolve into gibberish meaning nothing” . I’m paraphrasing
To paraphrase a well-known World War I air ace, whose later exploits I shall refrain from posting, “Every time I hear the word “community,” I want to pull my pistol.”
Pull your pistol? You mean like Jeffrey Toobin?
I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed to do that in public unless you’re a Democrat.
I heard Toobin was going to be charged with public indecency, but when the DA reviewed the video, he decided to dismiss charges as de minimus.
You guys and your lawyer jokes! But, yes, I suspect that Lauren Boebert, who also carries a concealed blunderbuss, is more of a man than Mr. Toobin.
ALl this mumbo-jumbo trigger me.
Boy, this is good! Oh, wait — “Man, this is good!” Oops, my bad. Maybe I’ll just use an emoji. 🤙
As for the community of postmodern hermaneutists who have made this stuff the be-all and end-all of higher education, an eternal curriculum of Greek and Latin awaits them in Hell.
Incidentally, lest your readers think they belong to a “community,” they are in fact members of a “cult,” which by definition is a community that the left doesn’t like. This means that it’s OK to speak of “drinking the Kool-Aid” when said beverage is being doled out by the likes of Glenn Beaton. It is also OK to refer to your readers as morons, duh.
Excellent post, Chad, but I think you meant, “Person, this is good!”
Well, here’s the thing, Greg — if I was not a “person” while in my mother’s womb, what makes me, or any of us, a “person” now? The same kind of magic that gave me “rights” to universal healthcare, affordable housing, and free education when, in the womb, I lacked even the right to life?
No, the left canceled personhood, so logically it should be offended by the word “person,” and I don’t wish to be offensive.
Terrific column, though you left out the regulation of light bulbs that caused me to stock pile 100W incandescent bulbs some years back in a lame and harmless act of rebellion.
Best yet ! Including the comments
I will use your precautions at the next Tail party I go to. However, I am so offended. Could you please re-write this column without using those banned words?
While this column is enlightening I do thing Mr. Beaton should at least acknowledge that there were people warning of this slide and it’s cause and purposes that were consistently ridiculed as wackos. My Father asked for my school books each year as they were issued for his review of content, this did not happen overnight, I’m 67. I offer this from a book published in 1932 and ask “How successful have they been? Very would be my reply, we seem very willing to listen to the fraudsters yet ridicule those trying to warn US, page 316, middle paragraph from Toward a Soviet America by William Z. Foster: https://archive.org/details/towardsovietamer00fostrich/page/316/mode/2up
Great comment and reference! How right you are. When McCarthy attempted to purge the government of Stalinists, he got labeled as the biggest, most awful “wacko” of the 20th century. You have to hand it to these leftists — they are good at what they do, as well as evil IN what they do.